Kentucky vs. Hampton might be the most lopsided match-up in the 2015 NCAA Tournament. The undefeated Kentucky Wildcats take on the 17-17 Hampton Pirates of the MEAC. Hampton upset Manhattan in the first-round of the NCAA tournament brackets and now takes on the overall No. 1 seed. The game could also be a stepping stone toward seeing the first undefeated team in college basketball since the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers.
The Kentucky vs. Hampton game takes place on Thursday (March 19) with a tipoff time set for 9:40 p.m. ET. CBS is providing live coverage of the game and the current odds state that the Wildcats are 32-point favorites. Though the teams are pretty balanced statistically, there seems to be a huge difference when it comes to talent on the court. A report from the Associated Press quoted Kentucky center Willie Cauley-Stein, who talked about the importance of taking every opponent seriously.
If you lose, you are done. If you win, you keep on going. That is what propels those teams, not only us. Everybody’s going to fight that fight.
He wasn’t the only one making a statement about preparing for an opponent, as Hampton head coach Edward Joyner Jr. had a few statements of his own.
Kentucky’s a great team, but at the end of the day everybody wants to play against the best and see how you measure up against the best. That’s what we’re going to get the chance to do tomorrow night and we earned that right.
Though anything could happen in the Kentucky vs. Hampton game, the Pirates aren’t one of the teams that a previous report on Inquisitr has suggested could beat the Wildcats. It doesn’t mean that this won’t be an exciting game to see in the second-round, but it is very likely that fans filling out their brackets for the 2015 NCAA Tournament are siding with the undefeated SEC representative. Picking against a team that is already 34-0 on the season might be too bold of a projection in just the second-round.
A story on ESPN has President Obama selecting Kentucky to win this game as well as the next five. He has the Wildcats beating Villanova to win the entire tournament and finish the championship season with a 40-0 record. It’s not that bold of a prediction, especially since many other college basketball fans are projecting the same outcome. The first step is in the Kentucky vs. Hampton game, though, and a national audience will be debating whether the team on the court is the best the sport has ever seen.
[Image Source: Andy Lyons/Getty Images]
